‘mickysavage’ is a well known name on political blogs, especially The Standard and Red Alert, and his own blog Waitakere News.

On Whale Oil -  – I suggested mickysavage used pseudo anonymity. He responded:

My identity is well known. I prefer to keep using it because I had it for a few years before I declared who I was.

How well known is his identity? Fairly well known amongst bloggers, but it is not obvious to the many casual readers.

At The Standard if you click on ‘mickysavage’ it links to Waitakere News. If you click on ‘mickysavage’ there are shown this profile:

There have been 1610 profile views. No identification to be seen. But as ‘mickysavage’ says, his identification is not a secret. Here is a profile from the NZ Herald (Saturday Dec 10, 2011):

* Greg Presland is Chair of the Labour Party’s Auckland-Northland Regional Council, a West Auckland lawyer, a member of the Waitakere Ranges local board and a former Waitakere City councillor.

In my opinion it is not being up front and honest for a political party official to comment on political blogs without being open about their identity.

And here is the real Michael Joseph Savage:

• NZ History
• Encyclopedia of New Zealand
• Wikipedia